The Eagle And The Nightingales

When she was reasonably certain that no one was watching her, she sprinted across to the other side of the roof. There was another walkway down the side of the building there, and this one went all the way to the ground if you knew how to release the catch on the last staircase.

All Freeholders, of course, did.

She careened down the metal staircase, knocking painfully into the handrails and slipping on the steps in her hurry. She tumbled down to the drop-steps, hit the catch, and let her weight take the steps down into the noisome alley below.

Then, at last, she was in the street, and it would take a better tracker than a noble's guard to find her.

CHAPTER TEN

I had not known it was possible to hurt so much. T'fyrr had always thought that when you were injured, you lost track of the lesser pains in the face of the greater. Evidently, I was mistaken, he thought, far back in the fog of pain and background fear. Odd how it was possible to think rationally in the midst of the most irrational circumstances. Probably that ironic little mental voice would go right on commenting up until the moment he died, since it seemed more likely that he would die of his many wounds rather than maddening hunger.

So T'fyrr cataloged every pain, every injury, working inch by inch over his abused flesh in his mind. He had to; it was the only way he could keep himself sane. As long as he had something to concentrate on in the face of darkness, fear and the absolute certainty that not only did he not know where he was, no one else did either, he could stay marginally sane.

Whoever had plucked him out of the sky at the height of his climb had known exactly what they were doing. They were ready for him the moment he tumbled, sick and disoriented, onto the floor of the room they had brought him to. He had not been able to raise so much as a single talon in his own defense.

Magic. They caught me in a magic net and dragged me down to their hiding place. And to think I was laughing in my heart at Nightingale's 'irrational' fear. Magic could do nothing to me, of course. It has no power over the physical world. I wonder if I will get a chance to apologize to her?

Before he could move, four burly men had swarmed over him, trussing him up like a dinner-fowl. But they had more surprises in store for him.

They hooded me. They hooded me like an unruly falcon! The hood had to have been made to order, as well; there were no hunting birds out there with heads as large as T'fyrr's. Maybe they were willing to kidnap him by magic, but they weren't counting on magic to keep him docile.

And someone, somewhere, made them a hood to fit a Haspur. Not them, I think. They do not strike me as the sort to be falconers, or they would know that hooding a raptor does not make him deaf or unconscious. So someone, somewhere, probably in this city, made them a hood. That someone will know who they are. If I can get free. If I can pursue justice against them....

Then to add insult to injury, they had put some sort of contraption over his beak that kept him from opening or closing it completely. A bit, he thought, combined with a muzzle. It was somewhat difficult to be sure, since they had put it on him after they hooded him.

Padrik's people only starved and beat me. At least they didn't torture me like this....

They had already pulled all of his primaries; the feather sockets ached any time he moved his wings. They were working on the secondaries. They'd clipped his talons until blood flowed in order to collect that as well. This in addition to bruises and aching bones.

Correction. They weren't exactly torturing him, technically, since that wasn't their intention.

Whoever they are.

In fact, he wasn't supposed to be alive at all. The mages hired to steal him from the sky had been ordered to kill him on the spot. They'd had a little argument about it while he lay there bound and hooded and helpless. One of them had been in favor of carrying out their orders as stated, but the rest had overruled him.

Thank the winds for temptation, and those unable to resist it.

He had heard them talking, every word; they might have been under the impression that he couldn't understand them, rather than thinking that he was like a falcon and would 'go to sleep' when deprived of light. It